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August 8, 2015

A little closer to home

After
spending a week in Alaska, Ryan and I met up with Fen in Anchorage on August 3rd,
and the three of us (and other cruise participants) flew to Dutch Harbor,
Unalaska, AK on the 4th. We flew in a Saab 340B aircraft, which is a
fairly small plane, only having room for 30 passengers. To share what our
flight was like, I placed a camera in a window, taking one photo every 30
seconds during the 3-hour flight.

Our flight to Dutch
Harbor on 8/4/15, before beginning the 2015 U.S. GEOTRACES Arctic Expedition.

When
we landed in Dutch, the first thing I noticed was that we were surrounded by
beautiful rocky green hills and small mountains, which surprised me since the
last thing I expected was to describe this place as beautiful. In addition to being
surrounded by the hills, bald eagles are everywhere on the island, which are
commonly spotted soaring in the sky or perched on top of buildings and light
posts. Another treat on the island is wild salmonberries, which grow on a
roadside hill that we pass on our walk to and from the Healyeach day, and this morning I picked a handful to munch on as
I walked towards the port.

A bald eagle on a
light post.

Wild salmonberries
make a tasty morning snack!

View of the port. The
Healy can be seen on the right, and a
sign for it can be seen on the hill to the left.

Aboard
the Healy, everyone is busy setting
up their lab spaces, which you’re already familiar with from my first post, Resting Easier. One new thing that recently happened
is that berthing has been assigned, which excites me since the Healy is finally starting to feel a
little more like home. We aren’t allowed to move into our rooms yet, but I
managed to take a sneak peak of my stateroom to get an idea of what my living
situation is going to be like over the next couple months. Since I have two
roommates and are shifts are unlikely to overlap (I know Ryan and I will overlap
by 4 hours), it’s unlikely that I will spend time in my room besides the time
that I sleep because when I’m awake, my roommates will likely be sleeping.

The door to Ryan’s, Steve’s and my stateroom.

A desk and the beds in our stateroom. It looks like I'll be sleeping on the top bunk!

Our stateroom is much bigger than I expected. A second desk, a television (for monitoring deck/winch operations and station arrival), filing cabinets (for clothes?) and a sink.

I’d
love to write more about Dutch Harbor and the Healy so far, but time (and the internet connection -- this) is limited on
the island before the cruise, so I’m going to stop here. I hope you enjoy my
writing and my photos! My next post will be from the Bering Sea! I hope you
look forward to it as much as I do!